She Crusades to Save
the Wildflowers of Spring
he current popularity of flower garden
ing and a growing human population
are responsible for a dangerous decline
Sin wildflower bulbs, says Mrs. Marjorie
Arundel of Warrenton, Virginia, who has
helped initiate a crusade to cut down on
the trade.
"Wild bulbs are the parents of some of our
most beautiful spring flowers, such as daffo
dils and tulips," explained Mrs. Arundel, an
avid gardener for decades and a member of
the Garden Club of America. "The hybrid
ized flowers, produced chiefly in the Nether
lands, lose some of their genetic strength. If
we lose their parents in the wild, we could
eventually lose the flowers altogether."
About five years ago bulb distributors be
gan listing wild narcissus, tulips, scilla, and
others in catalogs as novel additions to gar
dens, an appeal to floral elitism. To fill the
demand, low-income farmers in depressed
ANNIEGRIFFITHSBELT
areas around the world increased their
gathering of bulbs from the wild, sending
them on circuitous trade routes. Three years
ago Mrs. Arundel enlisted the help of the
World Wildlife Fund and the Natural
Resources Defense Council, which investi
gated the trade routes and the volume of
bulbs involved. The Garden Club of Amer
ica helped get the message to local garden
ers. A computer data base was compiled.
The investigation has revealed wildflower
losses from countries as scattered as Canada
and India, Portugal and Japan, but the great
est losses appear to have been suffered by
Turkey. Shipped from Turkey last year, for
example, were some 27 million bulbs of
snowdrops (Galanthus), whose nodding
white flowers often appear while snow is still
on the ground.
Responding to the conservation cam
paign, the Netherlands bulb industry is con
sidering a proposal to label parental bulbs as
"bulbs from wild source" or "grown from
cultivated stock."
Plasticballoons releasedon
Independence Day or any
peecal occasion have been
impiEacled in the deaths of
endangered sea turtles and
at least one sperm whale.
Air pollution at the Grand
Canyon now causes an aver
age of nine days of extremely
low visibilty each summer,
sometimes completely
obi eating the view of
the pposite rm.
A traveling exhibition on
tropicalrainforests of tihe
world, produced by the
SmithsonianInstitution,
is appearing in San Diego
until September 23.
A tern about isfair play
when helps potographer
NorbertRasing win first
prize ojha r in the World
PressPhot Contest.
U. S. and Baltic Students
Exchange Work in Parks
ational parks in Latvia, Estonia, and
the United States are being spruced
up this summer by work teams made
Sup of high school students from all
three countries.
Ten Baltic teenagers, five from each of the
two Soviet republics, and ten Americans
were to meet in Philadelphia before repair
ing fire damage in Yellowstone. Living in the
bush with adult supervisors, they will rebuild
foot bridges, clear fallen trees from trails,
and reseed fire breaks. In late July the 17
to 19-year-olds move to parks in Latvia and
Estonia for more maintenance.
The exchange is sponsored by the Student
Conservation Association of Charlestown,
New Hampshire, which annually places
both college and high school students in con
servation internships.
Tropical Forest Loss
Despite repeated warnings thatforests are disappearing, the rate of deforestation
of tropical closed forest-where trees cover more than 20 percent of the
ground-continues to accelerate. According to the World Resources Institute,
the destruction is most severe in Brazil but is also increasing significantly in
India, Indonesia, andMyanmar (Burma). ARTBY MARKHOLMES, NGS
ATllIONL
GEOGRAPHMAAl
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